At EU Cybercrime Confab:

Development of soft infrastructure, a priority - Eran Wickramaratne

Highways and Investment Promotion Deputy Minister Eran Wickramaratne says that the new Government's emphasis is on soft infrastructure in preference to hard infrastructure. One of the advantages Sri Lanka has is its educated population, one of the best in the region. If soft infrastructure is developed, the country could achieve great progress, given its rich human resources and its unique geographic positioning in the world.

The Deputy Minister said so while delivering his keynote address as joint Chief Guest, along with Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Ajith P. Perera, at the opening of the two-day European Union funded International Conference on "Assessing the Threat of Cybercrime", held in Colombo recently.

Organised by the Council of Europe (CoE), the conference was funded by the European Union (EU) under the joint EU/ CoE Project "Global Action on Cybercrime (GLACY)". The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) and the Sri Lanka Computer Readiness Team (SLCERT) were the Sri Lankan hosts.

Addressing nearly 100 Criminal Justice experts from 17 countries, who had gathered in Colombo to share their expertise with each other the Deputy Minister said, "Sri Lanka is an ancient society with an unbroken written history of 2500 years or more. So whatever your preferences are with its history, architecture or its features or wildlife wherever it might be, this country, very small in extent as it is, is truly unique in the world. Therefore we invite you, please go and enjoy the natural beauty of this country".

Country unique

"This country has two advantages. As the Deputy Minister of Investment Promotion, I often think about it. These two advantages make this country unique. One of these advantages is the fact that our natural location is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. As you move from East to West, Sri Lanka is really uniquely positioned. If you have to move goods particularly from the South Asia region to Europe, Sri Lanka gives you definite advantage of three to five days moving vertically to any European port . So Sri Lanka clearly has some natural advantages.

"Our next huge advantage is our human resources. We are really a small Asian village. Asia has cities with 20 million people which is approximately our total population. India and China have these large cities. So we are really, in that sense, an ancient village. But as you already know, we have one of the most educated populations in the region. Our emphasis, particularly, of our new Government, is to build the soft infrastructure of our country and to prioritise soft infrastructure over the hard infrastructure", the Deputy Minister said.

Meritocracy

Referring to the much-talked about current topic of good governance, the Deputy Minister said, "January 8th was the Presidential election and it was a turning point in the direction that this country will take over the next decade. Our Government led by President Sirisena was elected on the platform of good governance". "What do we actually mean by good governance? It has so many different components and I would like to mention just a few of them. One is we need to tell the society that this is a meritocracy, if we are going actually to have good governance. That is a long way off. But certainly it is a firm goal of ours. The next thing is we need to have the leadership, the top leadership of the country, actually committed to clean up the country. We need a leadership that is zero tolerant for corruption".

"Thirdly, I would say, we need supremacy of the rule of law. We are certainly moving in that direction".

Placing the conference in its current perspective, the Deputy Minister said, "This Government presented the 100-day programme which is largely putting the legal and constitutional framework for good governance. After we have completed that, we will basically be going to the country in a general election asking the voters of this country to decide whether they want the Government to continue or they would like another leadership team".

"So, good governance is in the environment. Your conference on cybercrime fits in very well in the framework that we have defined. We want to create an environment of work standards for our people. Therefore Sri Lanka is really privileged to have been invited to join this Council of Europe Convention on fighting cybercrime. I know that with our accessionto the Convention, certain benefits will accrue to this Country, including the benefit of creating a centre of excellence to train Criminal Justice and law enforcement officials in this region".